Paramedic 'offers taxi and painkillers to crash victim Simon Durrant with multiple fractures after crash' with Russell Smith in Sandwich

A paramedic called to a hit and run accident in Sandwich allegedly asked the victim to pull up his trouser leg.. before bizarrely telling him to get a taxi home after prescribing a painkiller!

Minutes later shocked Simon Durrant collapsed in the cab and pleaded for another ambulance to be summoned, a court heard.

Now Mr Durrant has claimed doctors later discovered he had a broken ankle, a busted fibula, shattered ribs and a punctured lung!

Simon Durrant was injured in the crash

He told a jury at Canterbury Crown Court how he was also treated at the QEQM Hospital in Margate for spine, shoulder and hip damage!

Mr Durrant revealed the extent of his injuries at the trial of Russell Smith, 40, who was found guilty of driving dangerously and jailed for a year. He was also banned from driving for two years.

Smith, of Laburnum Avenue, Sandwich, had denied being behind the wheel of the Volvo involved in the accident in Strand Street in May 2012.

Mr Durrant said he heard a screech of tyres like "something out of the Dukes of Hazzard" - a popular US Seventies TV show.

"I was standing on the pavement. I looked around to see what was behind me. I saw a car fishtailing and the back of it came on the pavement. The rear end of the car was out of control.

"It was just a matter of seconds but I could tell it was a Volvo.

Simon Durrant on a fishing trip

"Then I was flattened and all I remember was landing on my back and shoulders."

He told the court how a taxi driver Steve Jenkins, who had been following the Volvo, then rushed to his aid, "He called the police and held my hand."

He added: "I was in pain. I remember a paramedic arriving. He rolled my trouser leg up, dragged me to my feet, stuck me in the taxi and told me to go home and take a Paracetamol and see how I felt in the morning."

Mr Durrant got into the taxi but immediately began to complain of internal pain because "my left lung was gurgling".

He said: "I told the taxi driver could you please call for an ambulance again and this time an ambulance arrived which took me straight to hospital."

At the QEQM hospital doctors diagnosed injuries to both feet, broken ankle, a broken fibula, broken ribs and a punctured lung.

Mr Durrant added: "I also had spine, shoulder and hip damage, some of which is still ongoing."

Prosecutor Martin Scott revealed that Smith, who knew his victim through work, was behind the wheel of the Volvo.

He said that the taxi driver was driving up Market Street and turned into Hartnet Street.

The paramedic offered a man with a broken leg a painkiller

"He saw a blue Volvo being driven erratically at a time when Simon Durrant was leaving a pub. Mr Durrant heard a screech of tyres before being struck."

Mr Scott said Mr Jenkins was able to get the first digits of the Volvo's registration number plate - GM52- which was passed to police.

Smith denied being the driver - but during the four-day trial the prosecution revealed there were only four blue Volvos in Kent with those digits that night - and none was in that area.

CCTV footage from the New Inn Pub in Sandwich also showed that Smith had been driving his car that night at 11.40 pm- although he claimed he was at home asleep at the time of the accident.

"You lost control of your car as you turned right into Strand Street, although it's unclear how you could have lost control so catastrophically" - Judge Recorder Vincent Moran

But the Judge Recorder Vincent Moran QC told him: "You had been in various pubs that night since 6pm and it is unclear how much you had consumed.

"You lost control of your car as you turned right into Strand Street, although it's unclear how you could have lost control so catastrophically.

"You drove onto the pavement, either you were not paying attention, or were distracted or it was as a result of you having drunk some alcohol.

"You then ran down a pedestrian, trapping Mr Durrant between your car and a wall.

"This was a serious piece of dangerous driving and then you drove away from the scene for reasons about which we can only speculate, and you have gone to great lengths to bury your head in the sand over this matter."

At the end of the trial, Mr Durrant said he had made a complaint over his roadside treatment two years ago but was told the paramedic could not been identified.